A Letter From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

Most readers may not recognize the style of painting employed for this week's Man of the Year cover portrait, but Mikhail Gorbachev and his fellow Soviets certainly will. The image is actually the top of a lacquered box. For more than 200 years, artisans in a handful of villages in northern Russia have been turning out such delicately painted artifacts. The boxes have attracted collectors around the world. Art Director Rudolph Hoglund was reminded of the art form when he went to Moscow to find a Soviet artist for this week's project. Hoglund quickly decided that a lacquered likeness of the Soviet leader would be a novel but highly appropriate form for the cover portrait.

Linda Jackson, wife of Moscow Bureau Chief James O. Jackson and a collector of the boxes, then journeyed 24 miles north of Moscow to the village of Fedoskino. There she found Nikolai Soloninkin, who holds the title of "merited artist" at the town's famous miniature-painting studio. Artisans of Fedoskino and the nearby village of Danilkovo are believed to have originated the genre, and their exquisitely rendered village scenes and portraiture remain unparalleled. Soloninkin, 42, spent ten days painting Gorbachev's likeness on a 4 3/4-in. by 6-in. papier-mache box that had been slow baked in a 212 degrees F oven for nearly a month, and then covered with four coats of lacquer. The artist, who worked from stacks of news photographs, developed a rapport with his subject. "I really like the man," he says. "To me, he is much more an ordinary, down-to-earth person than some other leaders."

The main story is the fourth Man of the Year written by Senior Writer George J. Church, who visited Moscow and Leningrad in the course of preparing for the assignment. Correspondent David Aikman traveled to points as diverse as Austria, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, tracking down men and women who have known Gorbachev personally. Correspondent John Kohan embarked on a similar search in the Soviet Union, visiting Stavropol, where Gorbachev began his political career. The result is a rare glimpse into the private life of an ostensibly public man. Since 1927, when Aviator Charles Lindbergh became TIME's first Man of the Year, that honor has by definition gone to the person who has most influenced the year's events, for good or ill. Gorbachev certainly meets the test. He is also the first Man of the Year whose cover portrait was taken from a lacquered Russian box.